Airport Extreme and External USB Hard Drive

[Hrothgar]

I learned on another thread that I technically can't use Time Machine to back up to a non-Apple external hard drive (Western Digital) that is connected to my airport express by a usb cable.

Does anyone know whether I can safely use the drive for other purposes? I.e., can I safely store my iPhoto and iTunes libraries on the WD Drive? Or does airport express not support any external drive other than a Time Capsule?

Does the Time Capsule work as a full external hard drive, or does it only do Time Machine backups?

 

[priitv8]

You can use any USB external drive connected to APX as shared network drive. It will be OK for a shared iTunes library, but slow for online editing in a iPhoto library. You can keep offline archives of said library on it, though.
Basically, you can even use it for TimeMachine backups, but my personal experience shows that you will be starting fresh with your backups every month or so. It is utterly unreliable.
Also TimeCapsule can work as a regular network drive, besides being a fully Apple-supported TimeMachine backup device.

 

[Hrothgar]

Thanks.